Welcome to Below Deck Mean Girls, in which everyone in the deck crew hates Rhylee and would start a burn book about her if they had enough artistic talent to cut up little pieces of paper, glue them into a scrapbook, and doodle on them with markers. Too bad the interior crew is too busy rolling washcloths and taking out their own trash to help them!
The first drunken fight of the season continues to unfold as Rhylee complains about Chandler making them get up at six the next morning after a drunken night of partying. Chandler dawdles out of his bunk, awestruck that Rhylee is talking about how much he sucks right in front of him. I know everyone is against Rhylee since the producers have tried to turn her into a hot-blooded yacht monster, but I am on Team Rhylee. Mostly, she’s making the show good, but also, Chandler is the true monster for making them get up at 6 a.m. when the guests aren’t even arriving for another two days. Also, he even admitted that he was making them get up at six to be a monster. God forbid Ashton gets a couple hours to slam mai tais and grind on some ladies while Chandler daydreams of washing the boat and tries to sort out the difference between port and starboard.
Rhylee tries to explain to Kate why she’s mad at Chandler, and he tells her, “You just straight up lost your shit.†Proving once again he is most definitely not the gold standard of boat team leadership.
Kate, who is wonderful but alas also not on Team Rhylee, says Rhylee is in the wrong for yelling at her boss and says she better go to bed because she has to get up at 6 a.m. This doesn’t stop the boy deckhands from staying up until 2:45 gossiping about how much they hate Rhylee, which is just as immature as Rhylee! They may know what a “bosun’s locker†is but they’re hardly the paragon of maturity.
The next morning Chandler and Ashton gossip about Rhylee some more while she drags a mop around behind them. The producers then make Chandler, Regina, George, and Rhylee wash part of the boat together, and now I can say I’ve seen passive-aggressive squeegee-ing. Rhylee says, “Chandler’s not talking to me today? I think he’s a prick.†Then she asks Chandler how he likes the jacuzzi, which is such a gross thing to think about after the last guest, and he says “it’s fine.â€
Inside the boat, Caroline and Josiah spend hours ironing and folding sheets for the master bedroom. Kate comes in to inspect their toilet-paper points and Caroline breaks down into tears thinking about her mom, who has early-onset dementia. Josiah goes to check on her, and finds her clutching the stairwell, which marks the rare time someone is upset on this show for a real problem.
In the kitchen, Adrian is on the phone with his girlfriend, with whom he’s in an open relationship, because, “I love the pleasures of the flesh.†We learn nothing about his girlfriend other than that she shares his affinity for turquoise cocktail attire.
While Adrian ends his day in lizard pose, Chandler slips into his off-duty tank top and interrupts Rhylee’s hard-earned moment alone with her Diet Coke. He sort of apologizes to her, but more in the “I’m sorry you’re upset†way than the real way that actually makes people forgive and like you. He demands that she start showing respect for him and everyone except Adrian goes to bed angry.
Next thing we know, the arduous tasks of ironing Captain Lee’s pants and arranging tightly rolled washcloths on the counter are under way, and I can’t help but notice that this boat is so tacky, tackier than Mar-a-Lago dressed in Christmas tinsel. After Chandler forces the crew to stand in a perfectly straight line — because he is the king of doing unnecessary tasks while failing at his necessary ones — the next batch of guests wanders aboard with enough luggage for three times as many normal people. Rhylee complains about the suitcases, and Ashton tells her not to be frustrated and just focus on the passerelles.
While the guests enjoy roasted chicken set upon a bed of pearl couscous, Ashton and Chandler bitch and moan about Rhylee some more, and Chandler says he’ll have another talk with her. Chandler tells Ross they’re going to have a team meeting but he doesn’t want to gang up on Rhylee. In the team meeting, naturally, everyone proceeds to gang up on Rhylee. Ashton attacks her for the passerelles, and Chandler rescinds his first-episode comment about there being no hierarchy. He places Rhylee on the lowest rung of the ladder and declares, “This is not a democracy.†As many American citizens know, sadly, democracy doesn’t often reward you anyway.
During the crew’s sharing circle, Kate radios Chandler several times to tell him to get the luggage out of the main salon. Chandler, because he’s Regina George and would rather fixate on drama than be helpful, ignores her until Captain Lee forces him to put the luggage away.
While the guests get massages nearly nude in a surprise squall, Adrian works on dinner consisting of veal and asparagus. “I know it’s gonna blow them away,†he says. After he slaps some panko crumbs on some avocado wedges, Kate tells the guests they’re having veal. They promptly erupt in a collective crisis of conscience. “We don’t eat baby animals!†they fret. Well too bad, the animals are already dead and cooked anyway, and the guests must not have cared that much because they eat it, moan, and then erupt in a collective orgasm. Adrian, who was never worried about their complaining, says his “angels†told him to make the veal.
The deck crew spends all day clearing out a little boat garage and hanging up a disco light so the guests can then have an after-dinner pajama party, because rich people like to find dumb reasons to dress up. Chandler and Caroline stay up late to clean up and put the boat back together after the guests have gone to bed. Caroline asks Chandler to take the trash out and he says no because he’d rather organize the Jet Skis. Caroline is mad but takes the trash out herself, and ends up staying up later than him anyway. She writes the requisite nightly note to Kate about how Chandler is a dick who wouldn’t help her, which Kate dislikes because she doesn’t care about her feelings.
The next morning, in keeping with his maturity level, we see that Chandler has taken to calling Rhylee “Alaska.†He then sends her with Ross to take the guests to some caves, and she’s excited because the tender is a tiny boat, like the one she drives in Alaska. But Ross, per hierarchy, drives the boat and she becomes the backseat tender driver. The guests get seasick and, in true luxury-yacht employee form, she offers a piece of advice: “I get seasick all the time fishing. But I just ralph and rally!â€
When they get to the caves, the guests ask if they can swim, and Rhylee says no right before Ross says yes. The whole time they’re snorkeling, Ross freaks out because of the swell and the reef and the guests all swirling around him in perfect little mini-cyclone of imminent disaster. They argue as they fish the guests out of the sea like Rhylee’s Alaskan halibut, but they’re super-happy anyway because they’re in Tahiti which is one of the absolute best places on earth, even if you’re surrounded by reality-show boat dweebs.
Back on the yacht, Rhylee is mad that Ross didn’t listen to her on the tender. “I’m also a boat captain,†she says. Even though I’m Team Ralph and Rally here, I can see that this is a deluded view point. Touting her captain credentials as someone who’s never before crewed a floating Mar-a-Lago is like saying you style Michelle Williams when you’re a sales associate at Express. There’s nothing wrong with being a sales associate at Express, but most would agree the job descriptions are a bit different.
As Adrian, who was “Japanese in another life,†delivers a literal boatload of sushi to the guests, Ross complains to Chandler about Rhylee’s behavior. He says he’ll deal with it after this charter is over, so Ross storms into Captain Lee’s office to complain. Before he says anything, the episode ends, meaning we’ll have to wait another week to see if anyone gets mad at Ross for getting mad.